Orion Arm is the second volume in the Rampart Worlds
series, the first of which, Perseus Spur, I reviewed here
last year in less than glowing terms.

There are good things and
bad things about the latest volume. The main good thing is that
this book isn't quite as bad as Perseus Spur, being somewhat
more readable without incurring too many feelings of utter disbelief.
The bad? May's storyline still leans too heavily on plot devices
lifted from the Aaron Spelling School of Soap Opera, like Dallas
with added rocketships.

Orion Arm continues where Perseus Spur left off,
as far as plot goes.

Helly Frost, having walked out on the family multi-galactic firm
in a huff, is back on the resort world of Kedge-Lockaby, playing
the beach bum. Then someone tries to assassinate him (familiar
territory this -- it's how the first volume began), which gets
Frost back into the family game of intrigue and business politics.
The mega-company Galapharma AC had sent the assassin, and events
conspire to put the onus upon Helly Frost to quickly dig up the
facts about Galapharma's treasonable activities and thus save
the family concern from being swallowed by the giant combine.

As in the first volume, the pace is breakneck, and May pours on
the action to keep the pages turning. The trouble comes when you
slow down enough to think about what she is putting on the page,
when disbelief comes to the fore. Then you realise that people
like Poul Anderson (The Trouble Twisters) and Fred Pohl
(The Space Merchants) have been here before a long, long
time ago, and made a much better job of it.

Julian May's Rampart Worlds combines the most distasteful
aspects of American capitalism and cultural imperialism with space
opera, and then tries to make us feel happy for the trillionaires
who come out on top in the end, just because they are the guys
in white hats. Sorry Ms May, but in these days of more sophisticated
authors like Iain Banks and Ken McLeod, even space opera has certain
minimum standards, which Orion Arm fails to reach.